Boys picking fruit

In the 1770s the young Francisco Goya was not yet the dark chronicler of later years. He was a tapestry designer, painting full-size cartoons that weavers at the royal Santa Barbara factory in Madrid would copy in wool. This one he delivered in January 1778, meant to hang as an overdoor in the dining room of the Prince and Princess of Asturias at the Pardo palace. Four boys crowd around a tree for fruit, one crouching so another can climb his back. Goya was borrowing from Murillo, the older Sevillian master who had made a specialty of ragged children eating fruit. It is a cheerful, sunlit thing, made to be seen from below across a room where the royal heirs took their meals.